The spouse is watching!

41-year-old Sujata Dhar spends the afternoon chatting with her 36-year-old Spanish cyber-boyfriend. Sujata’s husband Sumit, an MNC executive, has now put a detective agency on her trail.
Sumant Sharma, a 45-year-old marketing executive, suspects that his wife Nita shed flab to please her boyfriend. Enter detectives, to probe a possible extra-marital affair.
Businessman Pankaj Garg has got the phone at home bugged to record his wife’s ‘clandestine’ conversation.
Extra-marital affairs never go out of fashion. And neither does good ol’ Sherlock Holmes.
The fact is that suspicious spouses are cosy about being nosey. And this means better business than usual for the private eye. ‘‘If there are 10 cases of women wanting to snoop on their husbands, there are an equal number of cases involving men wanting to know what their wives are upto,’’ reveals Mohinder Sharma of Falcon Detectives. ‘‘In 60 per cent of the cases, we find that the suspicions are true,’’ adds a senior official of Ace Detectives.
When Diksha filed for divorce from her chartered accountant husband Rohit Malhotra two months back, it was only after confirming her suspicion that he was having a fling with a colleague. The detective agency she employed made discrete enquiries from neighbours, and had a constant guard, dressed as a beggar, positioned outside Rohit’s office. Throw in hi-tech gadgets such as bugs and e-mail password-cracking software, and the private eye has his own tricks of the trade to get the job done.
Of course, keeping an eye on a person is easier said than done. As CM Sharma of BLS Detectives puts it, ‘‘Our job is such that we might end up violating personal space.’’
Lack of trust and increasing social pressures have seemingly combined to make for the suspicious spouse. ‘‘Over the past two years, the number of suspicious husbands and wives going through a mid-life-crisis has increased,’’ informs VIMHANS psychiatrist Jitendra Nagpal, ‘‘While a husband going through his wife’s handbag makes for a common complaint, if a suspicious partner engages the services of a detective, the marriage needs counselling.’’
But not if detective agencies can help it. ‘‘Strained relationships fetch clients for us,’’ says Sanjay Kaushik, MD of Staight Hire Private Ltd, ‘‘It is not uncommon for each spouse to be keeping an eye on the other!’’ So, think twice before you speak. Even walls have ears. Literally.
delhitimes@indiatimes.com